Happy Birthday go on tour, but not to my birthday party; booooo!

What was the worst birthday you ever had? Was it that time you invited your whole class to your party and only one kid came? Or when you came down with the flu and not even your family wanted to be around you? Or how about when you were severely injured in a Frank Grimes-esque silo explosion? As for me, my worst birthday was when Sub Pop garage rockers Happy Birthday went on a summer tour and didn’t come to my town on my birthday. Wait, never mind, my birthday is in March. Still, Happy Birthday are going on tour this summer. Maybe they’ll even come to your town and make your birthday one to remember. Or maybe the dog will eat your cake.

When your band consists solely of your bleating, Dylan-in-a-blender voice and a beat-up acoustic guitar that you line directly into a venue’s P.A. system, it’s probably pretty easy and liberating to just go on tour forever. I like to imagine Kristian Matsson, a.k.a. The Tallest Man on Earth, touring around solo in a 1989 Civic hatchback; just him, “Old Betsey” (that’s his guitar’s name, obviously), a beer-soaked box of LPs of his recent album on Dead Oceans, The Wild Hunt (TMT Review) for sale, and one outrageously large box of condoms. Ah, how romantic. Now that’s the life for a bearded folkie…

But wait, hold everything! Now here comes the young, handsome, and similarly bearded Bon Iver percussionst S. Carey… with all of his stupid, clatterly, clanky gear and a giant chip on his shoulder from backing Justin Vernon all these past months, eager to tour the shit out of his upcoming debut solo album for Jagjaguwar, All We Grow (due August 24 in North America and August 30 in the U.K.)! Before you know it, he’s shoving a bunch of drum kits and keyboards into that Civic; leaving sticky, half-eaten Ring Pops all over the car; asking Matsson to pull over at every damn roadside “pick your own blueberries” sign he sees; and cock-blocking the fuck out of my formerly chill friend. Ugh. Carey’s like the Nermal to his Garfield. Romantic folk-loner fantasy OVER.

Luckily, it looks like Carey’s only hanging around for the U.S. leg of Matsson’s rather enormous Western Hemisphere tour. And there’s a good chance that Matsson will mail college boy off to Abu Dhabi before it’s all over, anyway.

Sure, most bands typically schedule tours around new records that they’re actively promoting. But most bands aren’t Shellac. When you’re Shellac, apparently you schedule your tourdates around the promotion of… uh, well, one of those tourdates.

Specifically, this promotional Möbius strip appears to be centered around Shellac’s appearance at this year’s ATP New York on September 4; though it may also be scheduled around Steve Albini, Bob Weston, and Todd Trainer’s strictly regimented bathroom schedules. The band is sharing many of these US dates with Helen Money (a.k.a. cellist Alison Chesley from “that Chicago cello band” Verbow) who recorded her recently released second album, In Tune at old man Albini’s Electrical Audio studios in Chicago. Oh, and in order to prime you properly for these upcoming shows, the band also wanted me to tell you that you can go fuck yourself.

If there’s anything better than a legal high (and what isn’t?), it’s a legal bootleg. Now, legendary post-punk group Wire is bringing a legal bootleg series, along with a retooled version of their comeback album, 2002’s Send, to law-abiding pleasure-seekers everywhere. The band’s Pinkflag label plans on making select live performances available as part of The Wire Legal Bootleg Series, which can be purchased in its entirety via the label’s online subscription service as individual concert performances or in batches of three. Wire will also be releasing the super EXTREME-sounding Send: Ultimate, which features rare material like the 12 Times U vinyl-only collector’s item tracks, the unreleased track “DJ Fuckoff,” plus alternate and album tracks from the two out-of-print Read and Burn EPs that didn’t make it onto the original Send. Rumor has it Wire also has new material in the works for 2011.

Disco might be dead, punk may or may not have passed away 30 years ago, but dance punk is still hanging on, come hell, high water, or a new album from !!! (actually, there’ll be one August 24; still no word on The Faint). Miss TK & The Revenge had also been missing from the scene for a little while, but they dusted off their synths and cowbells for the release of a new full-length, The Ocean Likes to Party Too, released yesterday. Well, okay, it’s not like they completely disappeared. They had a track featured in The Wrestler, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The Ocean Likes to Party Too marks Miss TK’s first album with Ernest Jenning Record Co., which has recently announced that it will also reissue a 7-inch of “No Biterz” b/w “Future Power,” available in a non-digital format for the first time. You can feel good about buying The Ocean, too, because part of the proceeds will go to the Surfrider Foundation and aide for the Gulf oil spill — unless, of course, it’s all cleaned up?

So show your altruistic side, put on some sequined pumps, and in the meantime, delve into the new single “Beach Master” over yonder at the Chocolate Grinder.

Question time, TMT readership! What effect do the poor choices of Lindsay Lohan have on your own life? If you answered “Fuck all,” then congratulations! You’re absolutely correct! And if you answered “Skit I Allt,” congratulations to you as well! You’re correct and you’re Swedish! Then again, you could just be excited about Dungen’s assuredly psychedelic new record Skit I Allt, which will hit North American shores on September 14 via Mexican Summer. That’s right folks, Dungen have engaged in the filthy practice of potty curses just to shock you into buying their new album. Feel free to complain to the band in person at one of their many upcoming tourdates this September and October.